Ibn Faḍlān and the Rūsiyyah

Abstract

Ibn Faḍlān's account of the caliphal embassy from Baghdad to the King of the Volga Bulghārs in the early fourth/tenth century is one of our principal, textual sources for the history, ethnogenesis and polity formation of a number of tribes and peoples who populated Inner Asia. Of especial significance is his description of a people whom he calls the Rūsiyyah. Attempts to identify this people have been the stuff of controversy for almost two centuries and have largely focused on how this description can be made to contribute to the Normanist Controversy (the principal, but by no means the only, controversy concerns the extent of Viking involvement in the creation of Russia). This article provides a fresh, annotated translation of Ibn Faḍlān's passage and considers a multiplicity of identities for the Rūsiyyah.

Agents of Death: Reassessing Social Agency and Gendered Narratives of Human Sacrifice in the Viking Age

“…The funeral of a chieftain Ibn Fadlan's evocative narration of the funeral of a chieftain amongst a group of Rus (Lunde & Stone 2012;Montgomery 2000) 1 is rightly famous amongst Viking Age scholars. Describing 10 days of rituals and feasting leading up to the final cremation and burial, the story tells how the dead man is placed in a temporary grave while the accoutrements necessary for his burial are made ready.…”

“…A note on the Rus It behoves any discussion which uses Ibn Fadlan to discuss Viking ritual behaviour to establish certain caveats. First among these is the question of who the Rus were, and whether or not they were of Scandinavian origin (for more in-depth discussion of this issue, see Franklin & Shepard 1996;Montgomery 2000;Price 2010;Raffield 2018). This issue, known as the Normanist controversy, remains the subject of much debate, at times politically charged (Hillerdal 2009, 41-83;Hraundal 2013, 1;Schmid 2018).…”

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“…However the sources are unclear whether the Russ belonged to Slavs (according to Hudud al-Alam ‫)ﺣﺪو‬ ‫اﻟﻌﺎﻟﻢ(‬ ‫د‬ , Suenos (i.e., Swedes, as per the Frankish King), Scythians (as per Byzantine patriarch Fotiy), or Avars (as per Louis II). There is still a lot of debate about the identity of the Russ (Montgomery, 2000), but it seems that the Russ were not ethnically homogeneous but were several "cruel and barbaric" nomad tribes in the steppes of Southern Russia and maybe elsewhere united together for commercial and political purposes (Golden 1995, Galkina, 2002). 5 F 6 The Golden Horde conquest in the 13 th century only added an additional 'Oriental' component to the peoples who were not 'Occidental' to begin with.…”

Slavic Journeys to the Otherworld. Remarks on the Eschatology of Early Medieval Pomeranians<br>Słowiańskie wędrówki w zaświaty. Kilka uwag na temat eschatologii wczesnośredniowiecznych Pomorzan</br>

“…In our considerations, the first of these three purposes is the most significant. According to Kolbuszewski (1985: 36), among the 2 In his account, Ibn Fadlan mentions that this is how the act of cremation was understood by the Rus (Montgomery 2000). In academic literature, one may also encounter a theory according to which the act of cremation was a way to protect the living from the return of the dead in a corporeal form (Bylina 1992: 10-11).…”